Blairsville Brain tanning 3 day course January 17-19th, 2025

Most of our ancestors wore buckskins on a daily basis, whether they were working class or part of the elite class.  Buckskins were as common as blue jeans are in modern times.  Societies from all over the world made and wore buckskins, including Africa, Asia, Russia, South America and North America. Buckskin clothing will outlast any material you can buy in stores today, and will probably outlast you and can be passed down to the next generation!

Come and connect with your ancestors by learning this ancient skill. Our class is a 3 day class which takes you through the entire process of transforming deer skins into buckskins that are velvety soft, supple, light and strong. You'll go home with the buckskin you make during the class. 

We teach the wet scrape method and you'll learn these steps:

• Fleshing
• Bucking
• Graining
• Rinsing
• Membraning
• Neutralizing
• Wringing
• Braining
• Softening
• Smoking 

We provide the hides, fleshing beams, scraping knives and brain solution for tanning the hides. 

You'll need to bring a waterproof apron, and long arm gloves.  If you don't have a suitable apron, you can use a trashbag instead. Dish gloves will work but some like this would be best: gloves.  Also bring shoes and clothes that can get dirty, and clothing to keep warm.  Weather here is usually pretty cold in January and February as you can see in the pictures on the homepage.  Tanning hides when it's snowing is pretty but quite chilly!

Local lodging options:

There is full hookup camping available 30 minutes away at Vogel State Park

Blairsville motels:

Best Western Milton Inn
Comfort Inn
Creekside Mountain Cottage

The class fee is $385.  Deadline to sign up and pay is January 12th, 2024 to ensure that we have enough time to properly prepare the hides for students. 

Refund Policy:
Refunds will only be issued as a credit towards another class and will be good for up to one year from the date of the originally purchased class. Credit for classes cannot be used toward merchandise purchases.